On this day in 1883, many Texas cowboys went on strike against their bosses, absentee ranchers. The cowboys' grievances, however, were against developments that proved permanent. As closed-range...(Read More)

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GRANNY'S NECK, TX

GRANNY'S NECK, TEXAS. Granny's Neck, also known as Old Granny's Neck and Harper's Crossing, was six miles southeast of Cooper and one mile west of State Highway 154 where the Bonham-Jefferson road crossed the South Sulphur River in south central Delta County. The area was settled in 1846 when Brigidier DeSpain, his wife, Narcissa, and their three daughters arrived from Tennessee to claim land awarded to a relative, Randolph DeSpain, who had been killed with James Walker Fannin, Jr., at Goliad. Their survey was situated on both sides of the road, a major thoroughfare for transporting cotton. Soon after they settled, the DeSpains built a bridge across the South Sulphur on the highest ridge of land in the vicinity. The new bridge, sturdy and high enough to escape flooding, made the road an even more popular trade route. More settlers joined the DeSpains, including Mary "Granny" Sinclair, matriarch of the Sinclair family, who raised goats on a neck of land that jutted into the South Sulphur River. The community was named for her. The Granny's Neck school, established after the Civil War, had one teacher and enrolled thirty-two pupils in 1905. The school later moved to Pecan Grove. Early in the 1870s the bridge washed out, and the state built a new crossing named for the tollkeeper, G. W. Harper. After the building costs were paid, the tollbooth closed, and Delta and Hopkins counties maintained the bridge. It remained important to freight haulers during the 1920s and 1930s, but as agriculture became less important so did the road, and residents moved out of the area. Maps still identified the crossing in 1964, but by 1984 the road was no longer in use.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Paul Garland Hervey, A History of Education in Delta County, Texas (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1951). Wilma Ross and Billie Phillips, Photos and Tales of Delta County (1976). Fred Tarpley, 1001 Texas Place Names (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980).